CINCINNATI, Ohio – An elderly couple's lawsuit against six Cleveland Clinic police officers received new life Monday after a federal appeals court found the officers' actions to be "utterly intolerable in a civilized community."

Essex and Annie Hayward, ages 86 and 81, and their son Aaron, filed the lawsuit in response to a violent incident at their home Jan. 23, 2011.

Aaron Hayward, 40, who has worked at his parents' Parkwood Grocery store in Collinwood since he was 15, was returning from his job at about 4 a.m. when two officers in a Cleveland Clinic police SUV followed him to his driveway on East 106th Street. They didn't use a siren or flashers. One of the officers called out:

"Hey you, come over here, boy," according to Aaron Hayward. He ignored the officer and entered his home.

The officers called for back-up, and within minutes five additional patrol cruisers had pulled up to the house. An officer pounded on the door, demanding that the younger Hayward open up. The noise woke his parents.

When the Haywards refused the officers' orders they broke down the door and shot Aaron Hayward with a stun gun, beat him with batons, kicked him and dragged him outside, he claims in the lawsuit.

The officers also verbally abused the elderly Haywards, threatened them and yelled racial epithets, the lawsuit said.

Aaron Hayward later pleaded guilty to charges of willfully fleeing a police officer and resisting arrest. But he joined his parents in filing federal civil-rights claims and state claims in a lawsuit against the officers.

Judge Dan Aaron Polster correctly dismissed Aaron Hayward from the lawsuit, the appeals court ruled. But the appeals panel on Monday ordered the elder Haywards' claims of illegal home entry and intentional infliction of emotional distress to be reinstated.

The appeals court criticized the officers for beating down the door, shouting racial epithets and threatening an innocent elderly couple with physical violence – "all because of a few minor traffic violations," the appeals judges said.

"These are neither mere insults nor petty oppressions," the appeals judges wrote in the 25-page opinion. "To the contrary, this was a violent, traumatic invasion, effected through an alarming and unnecessary show of force."

The elder Haywards presented a sufficient claim to convince the appeals judges that the officers' conduct "was so extreme and outrageous as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency and was ... utterly intolerable in a civilized community."

"We are pleased that the Appellate Court upheld the dismissal by the District Court of Aaron Hayward's claims entirely. Today, the Appellate Court made a procedural ruling that the parents are permitted to present any evidence they may have regarding their claim. The Court made no ruling on the merits of parents' claims in the case. We believe our officers acted lawfully and appropriately. Furthermore, they deny any use of language related to race."

The officers' defense attorney, James Wooley, could not be reached for comment.

In their defense, Wooley wrote that the officers were justified entering the Haywards' home because they were in hot pursuit of Aaron Hayward and he had refused to comply with their orders, according to the appeals opinion.

Polster properly dismissed Aaron Hayward's claims of excessive force because the officers' actions came during the suspect's resistance of arrest, the appeals judges said.

The elder Haywards are seeking an unspecified amount of damages from the Cleveland Clinic, and ask that the officers involved in the incident be fired.

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